Get outta town! Three quick ideas for this weekend

The neighbors are tarring their driveway? Your handyman is finally getting ’round to flushing the septic tank? For whatever reason, you’ve suddenly realized you really NEED to get out of town this weekend?

No worries. Just in time, here’s a short list of events you might take in around the region this weekend:

Fertile Ground arts festival in Portland is billed as a citywide festival of new works. It starts today (Thursday, Jan. 24) and continues through Feb. 3, with a full schedule of world-premiere theater, visual art exhibits and more. www.fertilegroundpdx.org.

GO NORTH

The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver, B.C., continues through Feb. 3. Among performers on the festival calendar this weekend is dancer and performance artist Hiroaki Umeda, called “one of Japan’s most exciting artists, bringing together light, sound and movement with astonishing force and style” in a performance that plays with the sensation of color, drenching the stage in layers of red, blue and purple, framing Umeda’s constantly moving body. 604-605-8284 or pushfestival.ca .

About Us

Kristin Jackson, travel editor at The Seattle Times, grew up in Italy, went to university in Britain, and worked as a journalist in London and Vancouver, B.C., before migrating back to Seattle where she’s happy at her desk but way happier on the road.

Brian J. Cantwell, Outdoors editor at The Seattle Times, is a Seattle native who chose not to leave -- except for every chance he gets to go someplace interesting or adventurous. He lives on his sailboat at Shilshole Bay Marina.